Shooting prompts new look at old problem

Would things have been different at Santana High School if the 15-year-old suspect hadn't been called a freak? If he hadn't been mocked about his looks?

Experts think teasing and bullying can be curtailed if schools work hard enough at changing attitudes. But students often seem resigned to enduring the childhood ordeal.

"People get picked on here, but they just take it," said Ashley Tran, who attends Aldine Ninth Grade Center in Houston. "They don't go around shooting people."

Although authorities have yet to specify what prompted Monday's shooting at Santana -- which left two teen-agers dead and 13 other people wounded -- schoolmates say the suspect was the butt of frequent teasing. He was called a freak, a dork and a nerd. He was mocked for his skinny appearance; his skateboard was reportedly stolen.

After the 1999 massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School, states around the country passed laws providing funding for new school security and counseling measures. At Santana, the money was used for training in conflict resolution and anger management for students and staff.

Elsewhere, more and more school districts are implementing specific anti-bullying programs. If done right, experts say, they can reduce incidents of bullying and harassment by more than 50 percent.

"It's not something you're going to do in a week," said William Porter, a psychologist with the 42,000-student Cherry Creek School District in suburban Denver. "It may take two or three years of major commitment to get the kind of climate where kids feel safe."

The Colorado Legislature is working on a bill that would require school districts statewide to implement some sort of anti-bullying plan. The measure arose from an initiative by the state's attorney general, Ken Salazar, who heard repeated complaints about bullying during a series of post-Columbine town meetings.

"The kids are feeling that the schools aren't doing anything about this," Porter said. "The kids who feel there's no one they can go to -- those are the ones who have the most trouble. That's when you're talking about avenging or suicide."

Experts say effective anti-bullying programs draw in the entire school community, with particular focus on students who are neither victims nor bullies.

"That's the most important and difficult part -- changing the silent majority into a caring majority that will stand up for what's right," Porter said.

Also vital is training a school's entire staff, so victimized students have options when they consider seeking an adult's help.

"We want every kid to have thought about two or three adults they can turn to -- not just the school counselor," Porter said. "It could be the food service person, the bus driver."

In the small town of Kiowa, on Colorado's eastern plains, the high school of 140 students has curtailed bullying with a program that enlists the entire senior class as advocates for harmony.

The program includes a three-day retreat in the mountains for seniors at the start of the school year, and daily meetings of students from all four grades.

Kiowa High School's principal, William Hedges, believes bigger schools could incorporate some elements of the program.

"For so long, the plan for dealing with bullies was, 'Boys will be boys. You just have to tough it out,'" Hedges said. "That approach just doesn't work anymore."

Kevin Dwyer, a leading expert on children's mental health, said an estimated 4 percent of the nation's students skip school at least once a month because of fears of bullying.

"It's a problem with effects that can last lifelong, and yet people tend to discount it because it's always been around," said Dwyer, the former president of the National Association of School Psychologists.

Anders Pesavent, 18, a senior at Kennedy High School in Bloomington, Minn., said bullying seemed to have eased since he was a freshman.

The formation of a student-run anti-violence group may have helped, he said. But he scoffed at one recent program in which students were given a tracing of a hand and asked to pledge not to use their hands for violence.

"We're all high school students, but it did reek of elementary school," he said.

Aaron Lindenbaum, a 10th-grader at Shawnee Mission East High School in suburban Kansas City, Mo., said students who get picked on assume there's nowhere to get help.

He also doubted whether bullies would pay attention to adults who tell them to lay off: "They only way they realize it's not right is if their friends tell them."

A schoolmate, Lenny Tocco, said many students only understand how much bullying hurts when they're on the receiving end.

"Once you had something done to you," he said, "you know what it feels like."